Project Proposal - Week 9

The CALL tool I’ve chosen to use for my final project is VoiceThread. The audience is an advanced, non-academic speaking and listening class and the activity will occur toward the beginning of the course. The purpose of this activity is to get students to focus on fluency and get comfortable with using VoiceThread.

My plan is to have students debate the question, “Should public grade schools require students to wear uniforms?” The comic at the following link will provide the picture for the visual part of the voicethread and is designed to get students thinking about the topic. (http://www.charlesbeyl.com/images/School-Uniforms.jpg) I will also record the following paragraph as a background to public school uniform use to begin the discussion.

"The public school uniform debate has been an issue for educators, parents,and students for years. While school uniforms are typically found in private schools, in 1994, the Long Beach Unified School District in California adopted a mandatory uniform policy in some of its schools, making it the first urban district to do so in the United States. Though public school uniform use is not widespread, it is growing. What are your thoughts on this controversy?"

Students will be required to pose new views to the debate and to respond to what their classmates have already posted.

This CALL tool provides a great way for students to work on their speaking and listening skills outside the walls of the classroom. It also is a way to get some of the more reluctant speakers comfortable with speaking as they will have the opportunity to record their comments as many times as they want before posting. Finally, I hope to use this as a self-assessment for the students. We will continue to use VoiceThread throughout the course and at the end of the semester I will have students look back at their work from the beginning of the semester and compare it to their most recent work as a way for them to see the progress they’ve made.